John Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, we will never know until we try. Pursuant to section 904, with respect to my colleague, I move to waive, and I ask for the yeas and nays. Vote on Motion

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me today is Mr. John Lowery one of my colleagues from my office. I think I get it, Mr. President. I know you do. Tonight, millions of moms and dads will lie down to sleep, and they won't be able to because they are worried. One of the things that they are going to be worrying about is the cost of living. I get it. We had really bad inflation under President Biden. It was, like, 9 percent. The President just spent so much money and injected so much money in the economy without increasing supply that prices went through the roof. That is what inflation is: creating more demand than supply. And prices went up. We have gotten it down to about 3 percent--the inflation rate I am talking about. It jumped up a little last month--about 90, 95 basis points as a result of the price of gas, but I think after the fighting stops in Iran, the price of gas will come back. That doesn't mean the problem is solved. When you reduce inflation from 9 percent to 3 percent, that is good, but all that means is that prices are rising much quicker. They were going up really quickly when they were rising at 9 percent. Now that they are back down to rising 3 percent, that is better, but they are still going up. What people want--what I want, from one perspective--is deflation. You want prices to go down, not to just rise less quickly. Well, the problem with deflation is that we can cause deflation, but the cure will be worse than the disease because we will have to endure unemployment of 9 or 10 percent, and I don't want to see that many Americans--I don't want to see any Americans, but I certainly don't want to see that many Americans thrown out of work. So what do we do about the cost of living? Look, no amount--no amount--of guilt can change the past. It can't. It doesn't mean you shouldn't learn from the past, but no amount of guilt can change it. And no amount of anxiety can change the future. I mean, it is human nature to worry, but it is not going to change the future. The only thing we have is the present if we want to make things better. I want to tell you what we are doing--we are doing. We passed a major piece of legislation that is just starting to take effect. It is going to impact every American. They came up with a new name for it because they didn't like the old name, but I kind of like the old name so that is what I am going to call it: the One Big Beautiful Bill. It is really breathtaking in its scope--and will be in its effect. We cut taxes. Right now--don't take my word for it, just pick up the phone and arbitrarily call some Americans who have filed their taxes. They are getting money back. The average tax refund is up, like, 11 percent. The average American who normally gets a refund and who is already filing is going to get what works out to be an extra $250 to $300 a month, so that is going to help them deal with the higher prices. We also extended the prior tax cuts from 2017 that were about to expire. We made them permanent. Anybody who voted against making them permanent wanted to raise your taxes by $3.4 trillion. We beat them back. We increased the standard deduction. Whether you get a refund or not, you are going to pay lower taxes because we increased the standard deduction. We gave Americans a larger child tax credit. We cut taxes for many Americans on Social Security. We cut taxes on tips. We cut taxes on overtime. We gave many Americans a deduction on the interest they pay for a car loan. Not everybody--I don't want to overstate the case here--but many Americans, and I hope you qualify. For people in business--most businesses in America today are small businesses. I know you read about Google and Meta and all of the biggies, but most businesses in America and most of the jobs in America are created by small businesses. And most of the small businesses are what we call LLCs or sub S corporations. They are passthroughs. They are passthroughs. And we have provided that they don't have to pay any income tax on their first 20 percent of income. That may sound complicated; it is really not. But I can tell you it means more money in the pockets of small business women and small business men. If you are in business, we have also provided for full expensing of research and development, full expensing of new equipment and machinery. Why does that matter? That means you can buy new equipment to grow your business and deduct it from your income tax, which lowers your taxes. This is a major piece of legislation, and it is taking effect now. It is not going to solve the problem completely, but it is going to go a long way because the best way to deal with inflation is to grow your way out of it. If prices are going up between 2 and 3 percent, rather than suffering 10, 8, 12 percent unemployment to get prices down, to have deflation, you are better off increasing income so people's wages and income will go up faster than prices. And that is what the One Big Beautiful Bill is going to do. So don't think we are not doing something. We are. We have. And that bill is just starting to take effect right now. The second thing we have done--and I am not going to talk about all of them. We have a problem with housing in America. You don't have to be an astrophysicist to figure that one out. You don't have to be able to explain the law of special relativity to know that the cost of a home is breathtaking or to know that rents have gone up. Why is that? It is because of the lack of supply. Duh. It is because of a lack of supply. So what do you do to make a new home or a used home more affordable? What do you do to make rents go down? You increase the supply. And that is what we are trying to do. I sit on the Banking Committee. We have passed--the Senate has-- twice, a housing bill. It is right in front of the House of Representatives right now, and I hope my friends in the House pass it. I will tell you one of the things it will do. It will increase housing starts. If you don't think this works, just go read an article about what is going on in Austin. They increased the housing supply in Austin. You know, rents are dropping in Austin like a fat guy on a seesaw. They are going down. Why? Because they increased supply. Our bill I hope the House will pass will offer local governments-- local governments control the supply of housing. It is not the Federal Government. It is not the State government. It is local government. Do you know why? Because they have control of the zoning office, and they have to give you--the contractors--the permits to build. If they want to restrict the supply of housing, they just make it very difficult to build a new home. If they want to expand the supply of housing, they make it easy. For a variety of reasons I won't go into, many local governments have been restricting the supply of housing. So what our bill does--we say: Look, that is up to you, local government. It is your call. We don't want to be in charge of zoning laws in America. We don't want to be in charge, at the Federal level, of permitting. But you do rely on us for money. Every year, we send about $3.3 billion--$3.3 billion every year like clockwork--to local governments, called community development block grants. They love it. It is free money, and they can pretty much spend that $3.3 billion--these local governments can--on anything within reason that they want to. They love this free money. So what we did--this is in the housing bill, among other things that we passed--we said: Look, this $3.3 billion, you like it? Yeah. Well, if you will increase your housing starts--here is the good news. We started out with the sugar. We said: If you will increase your housing starts--you don't have to, but if you will increase housing starts in your city or local area, we will give you an extra dose of that community development block grant money. Here is the bad news for them. And we also said: Now, you don't have to increase housing starts, but if you don't, we are going to pay the cities that did increase their housing starts with the money that we were giving you that you don't get because you chose not to. So this bill isn't going to cost the American taxpayer any more money. The $3.3 billion is going to remain the same. But those cities that do a better job of increasing housing are going to get more money. Where is that money going to come from? It is going to come from the cities that didn't want to increase housing starts. And it will work. All you have to do is go look and see what is going on in Austin. I have two more topics I want to talk about. (Mr. MORENO assumed the Chair.)

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, look, everybody has got an opinion about Iran. I get it. That is good. Americans are entitled to have an opinion. Every Member of the Senate has an opinion. Every Member of the House has an opinion. Obviously, the President has an opinion. The Pope has an opinion. Everybody has an opinion, and that is a good thing. I can tell you why I think we did the right thing by going into Iran. First of all, the people of Iran are wonderful people. I am not talking about the people; I am talking about their government, which is run by their Supreme Leader. Now, the old Supreme Leader is now as dead as Woodrow Wilson, but they have a new Supreme Leader. It is the son of the old Supreme Leader, and he is just as crazy as his daddy was. The people in charge in Iran--they are a theocracy. That means, unlike America, where we separate church and state, in there, they marry their church to their state. And the Supreme Leader, who rules Iran, thinks that he is speaking for God. He really thinks God is telling him to do all this stuff. The Supreme Leader believes that if you disagree with his version of his religion, you should die. They hate America, and they hate Israel. They do. They want to kill us and hurt us the entire time we are dying. They are trying to get a nuclear weapon. This isn't like China having a nuclear weapon or Russia or India or Pakistan. Let me ask you a question. Would you give Charles Manson a nuclear weapon? That is what we are talking about here. Charles Manson is also as dead as Woodrow Wilson. But would you give a Charles Manson-type person a nuclear weapon? No. That is why we can't let the Supreme Leader and his minions in Iran have them. Now, how do we stop them? Well, this is what Iran was up to. First of all, President Trump and Israel went in in June and bombed the living daylights out of their nuclear facilities, destroyed them substantially. To develop a nuclear weapon, you have to have fissile material, enriched uranium. We hit their production facilities so hard that a lot of that uranium is buried underneath the ground, but it is still there, OK. We bombed the hell out of it, and we set them way back in terms of their nuclear ability, but it still exists. We received intelligence saying that Iran has started to take some baby steps to restart their nuclear program that we bombed to hell and back last June. But that is not really why we went in. We also received intelligence that said Iran has a new game plan. The Supreme Leader-- nutty as a fruitcake--the Supreme Leader has decided--here is his game plan--he is going to double and triple missile production. Ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, also drones--they were producing those things at anywhere from 200 to 600 a month, maybe more, and the Supreme Leader was going to stockpile all these new missiles and these new drones, and then he was going to turn to America and Israel and the rest of the world and say: I am restarting the nuclear program. You can bomb me, you can bomb us if you want to, but we have got all these missiles, and some of these missiles can reach Berlin and Paris and London and Turkiye, and we are going to use them. The first thing we are going to do is destroy the Middle East. We don't care. We are Charles Manson. We are going to destroy the Middle East, and then we are going to start on anybody else that we are mad at. We couldn't let that happen. We couldn't. So Israel and the President attacked. Now, whether you think it was a good idea or a bad idea, that is up to you. I can tell you the effect of it, though, because this-- the media won't report it, but this is undeniable. We hit Iran so hard, they are coughing up bones. The public sector but also the private sector today in Iran--it doesn't give me any joy to say this. We had no choice. I don't know how they are standing. They are held together with duct tape and spit. Israel and America ran 21,000 bombing runs. We bombed seaports, airports, the electrical grid, railroads, the petrochemical industry, the farm industry, their steel industry. Six out of ten Iranians of adult age don't have a job and don't have any prospect of getting a job. Many parts of the country don't even have electricity. We knocked out two-thirds of the Supreme Leader's missile launchers. Does he still have some left? Yeah. They are buried underground. He has to dig them out. You probably saw pictures on TV of the bulldozers. We think we have knocked out half of their cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. We are not sure how many drones. They don't have an air force anymore in Iran. They don't have a navy either. They still have some small boats that the Revolutionary Guard, which is part of their military, runs, but they don't have a navy. We sunk all their ships. We attacked virtually every single building we know of which is run by the Revolutionary Guard, which is part of their military. I don't think the American people, because the press hasn't reported it, have a full appreciation for the damage that we did and had to do. I have seen estimates as high as a trillion dollars for them to rebuild. I know the press glibly reports: Oh, you know, China and Russia will help them build back. What is the point of the war? Well, the point of the war: They are not going to have a nuclear weapon anytime soon. Charles Manson may be able to find a knife, but he is not going to have a nuclear weapon. And in order to rebuild Iran, it is going to take 20 to 25 years. And I don't know if we will be able to recover all of the enriched uranium. Some of my Democratic colleagues and some of our colleagues in the media are saying: It is a failure because you didn't get their enriched uranium. I never figured we would get it. And a lot of my colleagues are saying: Well, it is a failure because you didn't effect regime change; that nutjobs are still in charge. That is true. We can't dictate regime change. That is up to the Iranian people. The only way we can dictate regime change is sending in troops, and I don't want to do that. But the fact of the matter is that if you think the theocracy run by the Government of Iran--the Charlie Mansons--who is dangerous to the world--and I do--then the world is a much safer place today, and that is just a fact. That is a fact. It is going to be a long time before Charlie Manson can rebuild, and it is going be a hell of a long time before the new Supreme Leader is going to get a nuclear weapon. Third and final point. I don't know whether I will do this, but I will just do it. I don't hate anybody. I have said that before standing here, I don't. I do not. When I pray, I pray. God, don't let me hate because it is hard up here. It is not worth it. But if I had a short list of people that I would consider hating, Congressman Eric Swalwell would be on it. He has undermined the confidence of the American people in this body. Here is my impression of Congressman Eric Swalwell eating an ice cream cone. You know why I do that? Life is hard, but it is harder when you are stupid. And if you are going to be stupid, by God, you better be tough. This is no country for creepy old men, and Congressman Swalwell, he is about to find that out. Karma may be slow, but it is almost always on time. I yield to my friend Senator Kelly.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I move that, for the remainder of the votes this evening, all votes be limited to 17 minutes and, at the end of 17 minutes, voting automatically expire ipso facto without any discretion whatsoever.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I have a resolution that I have talked about before. I want to emphasize that it is not a bill. Could I ask for order in the Chamber?

Mr. KENNEDY. I want to emphasize that it is a resolution; it is not a bill. I also want to emphasize, at the outset, that it only applies to the Senate. It only applies to the U.S. Senate. And here is what my resolution would do: It would change Senate rules to provide that, when we are in a shutdown, Senators cannot be paid, cannot receive their salaries. Their checks would be--think of it this way--locked in a vault. And once the shutdown is over, the Senators could pick them up. Now, I think everybody in the Congress knows what I am about to say. It is maybe a bit cynical, but it is true. If I were King for a day--I am not, and I don't aspire to be--and I wanted to avoid shutdowns, I would do two things. I would provide that Members of Congress can't be paid during a shutdown, and I would provide that Members of Congress can't leave Washington, DC, during a shutdown. Now, I can't pass the second part of that, so I am going to try to pass the first part of that. This resolution--again, it is not a bill--is about shared sacrifice. And I am not doing it to punish anybody. I am not doing it to try to embarrass anybody. I recognize that there are varying degrees of wealth among U.S. Senators and their ability to go without a paycheck. I know and like every Member of this body, and every Member of this body who has a substantial amount of wealth has achieved that wealth through their own hard work, and most, if not all, of them started with nothing. And do you know what I say? God bless them. More power to them. That is America. So I want to put that up front because I am sure some are going to point out that some of our Members are wealthier than others, and it is true. I mean, not to single anybody out, but I have seen Senator Rick Scott's house. It is bigger than a Costco, OK? More power to him. He earned that. I have seen Senator Mark Warner's house. It is bigger than a Target. More power to him. He earned that money. He started from nothing. So did Rick. But this bill isn't about that. It is about shared sacrifice and sending a message. We have about a squillion employees at the Department of Homeland Security that aren't being paid, and there is no prospect of them being paid. Before I yield to my colleague Senator Moreno, I want to point this out. I said it yesterday, but I am going to say it again. The party line among us is that we are ``that close'' to reaching a deal to get government back open, to which I respond respectfully: Dream weaver. OK? I don't believe it. I hope I am wrong. I know Mr. Homan is now involved. He is good, but he can't work miracles. I do not believe, because of the faction of my Democratic friends' party that is in control, that my Democratic colleagues can vote for anything--anything--that could be interpreted as helping ICE. I just think that is political and policy reality. This is America; they are entitled to their opinion. What I think we should do, as I said yesterday--and Senator Cruz has talked about this eloquently. I want to give him full credit. The Democrats have offered to open every part of DHS except ICE. I would gratefully accept their offer. Let's get them open immediately, and then the very next day, we should start a budget resolution. Through reconciliation, we should pass a budget for the rest of ICE--the rest of DHS that is not open. Now, I would welcome my Democratic friends' involvement with that, but I know they can't vote for it. But we could do this through reconciliation, as we passed the One Big Beautiful Bill. We have two more shots under the rules of reconciliation. It would easily be sustained in a Byrd bath. It would not take 60 votes; it would take 50 votes plus the Vice President. That is how we passed the One Big Beautiful Bill. So before I call on Mr. Moreno and return to the subject, I really think we ought to surprise ourselves and do something intelligent if we really want to get this government back open. We could have it open within a week. The Democrats, I think, will find that acceptable, and I believe Republicans will find that acceptable if we would just do it. I would like to yield a few minutes to my good friend Senator Moreno about my resolution.

Mr. KENNEDY. Of course.

Mr. KENNEDY. Sure.

Mr. KENNEDY. Here, Mr. President and my good friend Senator Moreno, is the message that we send if we do not pass this resolution: If it weren't for double standards, we wouldn't have any standards at all. If it weren't for double standards, we wouldn't have any standards at all. Now, the American people see what is going on. As I have said before, not every American reads Aristotle every day. They are too busy earning a living. They are too busy getting up, going to work, obeying the law, trying to do the right thing by their kids. As usual, Senator Moreno makes very salient points. He is aware, as am I, that once again, this is a resolution that just affects the Senate. It doesn't affect the House. Senator Moreno is well aware, as am I and every Member of this body, that this is a bipartisan resolution. To change the Senate rules, I had to go through the Rules Committee. My resolution--our resolution passed the Rules Committee unanimously. Every single Republican and every single Democrat voted for this resolution. What I hear Senator Moreno saying in a very eloquent way: Yes, there are varying degrees of wealth in this Chamber, but we all make 170 grand a year, and that is a fortune for most Americans. I am not saying that Senators don't earn that. This bill is not meant to punish anybody. I know some Senators who work so hard that that 170 grand a year is probably equivalent to about $11 an hour. I mean, they are working all the time. This isn't about that. This is about shared values. This is about sending a message to our colleagues at TSA and elsewhere in DHS that we understand, that we are trying to get government back open. But in the meantime we are going to try in our small way to share your experience. So I would ask my colleagues, please--I don't like to talk too much about doing the right thing because I think everybody in this body wants to do the right thing. We just disagree sometimes over what the right thing is. But honestly, I don't see how any one of my colleagues can disagree with either the spirit or the letter of this resolution. So, Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 296, S. Res. 526, which Senator Moreno and I have just talked about; further, that the resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with respect, I want to give my colleague Senator Schatz more time. He objected and left the Chamber. Is he coming back?

Mr. KENNEDY. Just one second. Is he ill? What should I do, Mr. President? Should I give him more time?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, can we get a ruling? I don't want to be unfair to anybody. My Democratic colleagues, I told them that--

Mr. KENNEDY. So should we give Senator Schatz more time to come back? Should we give him more time to come back and explain? I see the Parliamentarian giving some guidance. Tony, trust me; I know what I am doing.

Mr. KENNEDY. May I inquire why not?

Mr. KENNEDY. Can you opine on why my colleague objected and then immediately left and whether he is coming back?

Mr. KENNEDY. So I just want to be sure, Mr. President. I am not trying to put you on the spot, but I see our Parliamentarian is here, and they can give you able advice. Does that mean I can object to anything, at any time, without being recognized?

Mr. KENNEDY. I don't even have to get the floor?

Mr. KENNEDY. So I can walk in, in the middle of a debate, without the floor, right back here, in front of God and country, and say ``I object,'' and it shuts things down? I don't understand that.

Mr. KENNEDY. Without having the floor?

Mr. KENNEDY. And, again, with respect, Mr. President, is your ruling that Senator Schatz, who is my friend; I talked to him before I was coming down--that he did not have the floor but he can still object?

Mr. KENNEDY. But did he have the floor?

Mr. KENNEDY. Not to put too fine a point on it, but did he have the floor?

Mr. KENNEDY. Senator Moreno, did you want to say something?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I think the Senator is right. You started out your comments by saying: Where are we? I think we are on Pluto. I mean, I do not understand how the Chair has ruled that the Senator didn't have recognition but he could still object, and I don't understand how that is possible. I just don't understand how that is possible. In fact, our whole rule about the majority leader having control of the floor, whoever the majority leader is, is centered around the proposition that, at any time, the majority leader can assert his right--it is a custom, not a law--can assert his right to control this floor and that shuts down my recognition. But he has to get recognition. He just can't come in here and say: Stop talking; I am the majority leader. And I don't understand how a Senator can object--I don't understand how a Senator can do anything in this body without achieving recognition. That is like--that is--I am no expert on the Senate rules like the President is and the Parliamentarian is, but you don't have to be an astrophysicist to understand that is one of our bedrock rules.

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, Senator.